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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26662399">when you're feeling empty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flysafepapi/pseuds/flysafepapi'>flysafepapi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Peaky Blinders (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:36:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,338</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26662399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flysafepapi/pseuds/flysafepapi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Oldest brother Shelby, Jack, and his probably ill-advised relationship.<br/>Snippets.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alfie Solomons/Original Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have a <a href="https://flysafepapi.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>, come and rant with me.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The war, like everything else, had left it’s marks and wounds behind in all of them, and he sees it every day when he looks at his younger brothers. War had killed who they were on the inside, stripping it away like it was never there in the first place, but Jack remembers. There’d been a time, what feels like years ago now, when they’d smiled and laughed, the way only boys that had the world in their hands could. He’d tried, and probably failed on multiple occasions, to keep them away from the horrors of the world for as long as he could. In the end, the decision was taken out of his hands, and he could only watch as the boys he’d raised when their father had left lost everything that he wanted them to never stop being.</p>
<p>“Jack.”</p>
<p>“What, Ada?”</p>
<p>It’s been two weeks, since he’s been back home. Two weeks of trying to navigate the halls and stairs with the leg the triage nurses had somehow managed to save, but it was the silence that got to him the most. Finn and Ada weren’t quiet, and barely let him out of their sight, but it wasn’t the same. When the dreams come for him, of artillery shells and blood and pain, the silence that should be filled with his three boys is almost painful.</p>
<p>“Jack, they’re home.”</p>
<p>Those three words are enough to get him off the bed in a second, wincing when the sudden movement pulls at his bad leg, and down the stairs as fast as the useless thing will let him go. He doesn’t mean to freeze in the doorway, but just the sight of them is enough to make him stop in his tracks. How long has it been since he last saw any of them? Over a year, he thinks, and even then it had only been a glimpse of Tommy across a body-filled field. He’d never even known if any of them were still alive, or uninjured, but apparently god had given them a break, because they look whole, in body if not in spirit.</p>
<p>Arthur reaches him first, grabbing him by the shoulder and dragging him into a hug, rough in his movements and relief floods through him at the feel of his little brother in his arms again. It takes less than a second for John to drop his bag to the floor with a loud thump and join them, tangled together in the doorway in a mess of limbs and talking over the top of each other, tears going ignored on their faces. It doesn’t go unnoticed, that Tommy stays where he is, unmoving, and Jack isn’t surprised. A far cry from the boy he remembers, Tommy looks like something has hollowed him out from the inside, stolen away all his livelihood. It doesn’t stop Jack from gently pulling himself away from John and Arthur and walking over to him.</p>
<p>“You still haven’t hit that growth spurt yet,” he says, because everything he wants to say is locked inside his throat and he can’t make himself say them. “Still short, Tom.” That gets him a twitch of the lips, barely a smile but it’s enough, and when he pulls Tommy into a tight hug he’s reminded of when they were younger and he’d hold all three of them and Ada close in the darkness of his bedroom, murmuring to them about whatever came to mind in an attempt to drown out the sound of their father in the kitchen below, violent in his drunkenness.</p>
<p>“You’re home now,” he says, into the side of Tommy’s head, still unable to resist pressing a quick kiss there, like he used to when Tommy was just a boy. Between the two of them, he and Polly had practically raised the boys, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop thinking of them as his sons, in a way. It was his hard work and care that turned them into the men they are, not his father’s. “You’re safe, it’s alright, I’ve got you.” It takes a few moments, but eventually Tommy relaxes into his hold and returns the hug, grabbing him around the middle with hands curling tight into his shirt, grabbing at him with a desperation that he hasn’t seen in Tommy since that day years ago when he’d finally admitted to Jack that he likes men as well as women, and when he feels tears soaking into his shoulder he doesn’t comment on it, or the shaking shoulders underneath his hands. “I’ve got you. Nothing’s going to hurt you while I’m around.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. cold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You’re not his father.”</p><p>It’s the cold way Tommy says the words but won’t look him in the eyes that makes him snap and hit the table, making the glasses rattle and Finn flinch.</p><p>“Remind me again who looked after all of you when there was no one else. Hm? Me. I did that. I was the one who raised all of you because there was no one else to do it, and almost killed myself doing it but I did it anyway because I care about all of you more than our fucking father ever did.”</p><p>No one is meeting his eyes now.</p><p>“I’m not his father, you’re right, but I’m the closest he’s ever going to get. Tommy, you’re a smart man, but if you think I’m going to stand back and watch you put anyone in danger, then you’ve forgotten who I am.”</p><p>He doesn’t play favorites, but him and Tommy have always been closer than he’s been with the others. Once upon a time, they’d told each other everything, but apparently that time has passed. Even as close as they are, or were, they’d had more than their fare share of fights over the years, and they were never small events. A side effect of no secrets meant they knew exactly what to say to make it hurt the most.</p><p>“Finn, get your things, we’re leaving.”</p><p>For a minute, Finn fidgets and looks unsure about what to do, listen to Tommy or the brother that raised him like a son. In the end, he stands up, and rushes out of the room without looking at anyone.</p><p>“If you walk out of this house, then you’re out of this, permanently.”</p><p>Where did he go wrong? Somewhere along the line, he’d somehow missed Tommy turning into the cold, calculating man standing in front of him, giving him ultimatums like he wasn’t always the one to pick him up when he fell, and soothe his wounds when they got too bad. He missed his real younger brother, the one that laughed freely and openly, not this man he doesn’t recognise.</p><p>“If that’s how it has to be, fine. Cut me out, I don’t care, because either way I’m not going to let you use Finn in your dangerous plans. He’s just a boy.”</p><p>“You don’t get to tell me what to do, not anymore. You’re not in charge here, you’re just a hindrance.</p><p>"Yes, I’m just a hindrance. You’re just losing your mind. I guess we’re both things we never thought we’d be. Tell you what, I’ll do you a favour, and I’ll walk right out those doors and I won’t look back. And when you’ve come to your senses and you realise that I’m right, I’ll listen, because no matter what happens you’re still my brother, and I love you.”</p><p>Tommy doesn’t watch him go, out of anger and annoyance, but he got what he wanted. His oldest brother is gone and he’s no longer meddling in things he should just keep away from. Why, then, does he feel so cold?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. little brother</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Jack? Are you asleep?”</p><p>The creaking of his bedroom door wakes him up fully, but the flashes of lightning and distant rumbling of thunder had kept him from truly falling asleep. Instead, he’d been caught in that place between slumber and alertness, until the sound of small feet stepping towards his bed had him rolling over.</p><p>“What are you doing awake?”</p><p>In the dim light of the lamp sitting on the table beside his bed, still shining because he’d been too exhausted to turn it off, he watches Arthur standing in the doorway, holding Jack’s old stuffed bear in his hands so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. The answer to his question comes when the crack of lightning makes Arthur flinch and squeeze the bear to his chest.</p><p>“I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”</p><p>Jack almost smiles. Isn’t that just like Arthur, to disguise his own fear as something else entirely, to avoid admitting that there’s anything he’s afraid of. It’s not the first time this has happened, and he’s pretty sure it won’t be the last.</p><p>“I think I’d feel better if you slept in here with me. Do you think you could do that for me?”</p><p>Arthur nods emphatically and makes a bit too much noise for the late hour when almost knocks the table over in his haste to get under the thin covers, hunkering down into Jack’s side, still clutching the teddy bear. It’s a bit of a squash, trying to find a spot where Arthur’s elbows aren’t jabbing him, but it’s easy enough to manage. Arthur is still small, hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, and Jack almost wishes he never would. Everything would be easier, if his brothers stayed the way they were, small and easy to protect.</p><p>“Do you need me to stay awake with you?”</p><p>Arthur’s voice is low, his boy half asleep already, and it’s hard to keep the smile off his face when he says “I think I’ll be okay, you get some sleep, Art.”</p><p>“Okay. Love you, Jack.”</p><p>“Love you too, Arthur.”</p><p>When he wakes up, Arthur has rolled over and the bear is squashed between them, Arthur’s arm thrown over it and his fist curling into the sweater that Jack wears to bed when the cold weather creeps in. Carefully, so he doesn’t wake up, Jack brushes the hair back from Arthur’s face and watches him for a few minutes. The bruises on his face are faint, almost gone but still there if you know where to look. A gift from their father, in his drunken rage that Jack hadn’t been around to stop.</p><p>“I’m never going to let anything hurt you anymore. Not even him.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. tempted</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Jack, you home?”</p><p>“Of course he’s home, where else would he be, Arthur?”</p><p>He hears the front door swing open without him giving an answer, and he doesn’t groan in frustration when he drops his head back onto the couch but it’s a near thing. Just one day of peace, that’s all he asks. One day where there wasn’t people in and out of his house at all hours of the day, interrupting what would have been a good time. </p><p>“We should probably-”</p><p>“I’m tempted to kill your brothers right now.”</p><p>“I’m tempted to let you.”</p><p>Between Ada needing him to babysit Karl last week, and the mess with Changretta before that, he’s starting to believe his entire family are conspiring against him to keep him from ever having sex again. Well, he would, if any of them knew about this. Tommy might, he’s a perceptive little shit, but he hasn’t said anything and Jack’s not going to be the one to bring it up. He can hear John and Arthur getting closer to the living room where he’s still laying on the couch, unwilling to move. It’s far from the worst thing they’ve walked in on.</p><p>“You’re staring.” Alfie grins at him when he notices Jack watching his hands working at the buttons of his shirt, pulling it back on reluctantly, and he grins back.</p><p>“Why wouldn’t I? It’s not like I’ll be able to do more after they get in here.”</p><p>It’s hard not to laugh, when Arthur freezes in the doorway, looking between the two of them with a mixture of shock and annoyance on his face.</p><p>“Tell me you didn’t.”</p><p>“Arthur.”</p><p>“Anyone but him, Jack, I’m begging you.”</p><p>He knows Alfie is going to say something to antagonise Arthur a split second before he does, and has to get off the couch and stand in between them to stop Arthur from throwing a punch when Alfie says “That must run in the family, he was begging pretty well a few minutes ago.” and Arthur turns a particularly deep shade of red.</p><p>“That’s enough Alfie. Arthur, what I do in my spare time is none of your business.”</p><p>John, suspiciously silent, looks at Jack for a few long moments. He looks at the tellingly wrinkled undershirt on his older brother, then over to where his discarded button-up is still hanging over the back of the couch, and then to Alfie, who’s still doing up his belt, and bursts into laughter.</p><p>“Interrupted your spare time, did we?”</p><p>“Don’t think you’re too old for me to send you to your room.”</p><p>“Looks like you’re the one that needs to go to your room. We sit out here, you know.”</p><p>Arthur is still standing in the doorway, frozen in either anger or shock, it’s hard to tell. When John laughs, Arthur elbows him and hisses at him to shut up, which only makes him laugh harder.</p><p>“Is there a reason why you’re here, or do you just come around at odd hours because you love fucking with me?”</p><p>“By the looks of things in here, we’re not the ones that love-”</p><p>“Alright, out. Leave. Get out of my house before I hit the both of you.”</p><p>He pushes them right out the door, Arthur still mumbling about how he could do better, and John still laughing to himself. He loves them, he does, but sometimes he thinks he could kill them just to get a moment of peace. He’d never do it, of course, but it’s cathartic to imagine, at times. Ones like these, especially. </p><p>“Jack, seriously, Alfie Solomons?”</p><p>“Goodbye Arthur!”</p><p>“Hey, tell Solomons he better be good, or I’ll kill him for breaking your heart.”</p><p>“Fuck off, John!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. glue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m coming with you,” he’d said, not letting anyone try to persuade him otherwise. It’s a risk, he’s always made it a point to stay away from any of the business his brothers have had with Alfie, keeping it separate from them. It’s a complicated thing that they’ve been in for the last year and a half. Neither of them are the type to talk about their feelings, and so neither of them are good at saying the words that apparetly come so naturally to other people, but he’d thought that there was at least something there. Where he stands now, looking down at the bodies slumped over in their chairs, he realises that he’d been blinded by it. Blinded by him. </p><p>“What have you done?”</p><p>It’s a strange thing, to realise that it was possible to feel your own heart breaking inside your chest. Across the room, Arthur looks at him from where he’s being held by men he doesn’t recognise. When Arthur had been young, he’d always given Jack that same look, whenever he’d done something he knew he shouldn’t have and needed help getting out of. The problem was, he wasn’t sure he had the strength to bail out his younger brother this time. Not yet, not now. Ollie turns his head away when Jack looks at him, keeping his eyes on the far wall instead of looking him in the eyes. It’s another blow, only just slightly less than Alfie’s betrayal. In a way, it’s worse. He’d thought the younger man had become a friend, but apparently they’ve both been lying to him the entire time. </p><p>“What was I, just a way to get close to them? Doesn’t matter that he’s a real person with feelings, fuck it, he’s just a means to an end, right?” </p><p>“Wait a second, love-”</p><p>He must look half mad, when he slaps Alfie’s hand away from his shoulder and takes a step back, shaking his head. He feels it, like everything is hazy and he’s hearing things from the other end of a long hall. “You don’t get to call me that, not anymore.” </p><p>“Ollie, get him a drink would you? Looks like he’s going to pass out, he does.”</p><p>Pressing the glass into his hands, Ollie still doesn’t look at him, and for a second he debates hitting the boy but ultimately decides against it. He’s done enough fighting in his life, he doesn’t think he can do any more. Not after this. Keeping his eyes on Arthur, who watches him with a sorry look on his face, he doesn’t notice Alfie ordering everyone out of the room until it’s just the four of them, pointedly not look at each other because they’re afraid to see what they’ll find there. </p><p>“Why?” The single word, practically a whisper, seems to hang in the air between them long after the sound of it has faded into silence. And that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Why did you do this to him, why did you do this to me, why couldn’t you have just been the man I thought you were. Questions with no answers, or at least no answers that he’d be able to handle without breaking into a thousand pieces. “Where’d it all go so wrong?”</p><p>“It’s just business, love.” </p><p>Just business. Is that all it amounted to, in the end? Countless late nights and early mornings, admitting things he’d never told anyone else, letting someone else in after he’d lost Georgina. All of it, washed right down the drain for a business deal, like none of it mattered at all. He’s been in the war, gotten his leg almost blown off doing it, and this hurts more than anything else he’s ever felt. </p><p>“Did you know you were going to do it, when I was here last? When I said-” </p><p>He can’t repeat it again. He’s almost afraid to hear the answer. </p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, I knew.” </p><p>How he isn’t bleeding out on the floor, with how bad it hurts to hear those three words, is a miracle, really. It certainly feels like someone has shoved their hand into a raw wound on his chest and ripped his heart out with nothing but their fingernails. He almost expects to see the gaping hole in his chest when he looks down, but of course there’s nothing. Physically, anyway. </p><p>“Jack-”</p><p>“No.” </p><p>For the first time since he stepped into the room, he finds the strength to look Alfie in the eyes. He’d been avoiding it for as long as he could, but he can’t resist the urge to do it, just a glance. There’s a lot he’d had trouble resisting, when it comes to him. One of his fatal flaws, apparently. </p><p>“I’m done. I can’t do this.”</p><p>“Jack, it has nothing to do with us.”</p><p>He can count on one hand, the number of times that he’s truly snapped in anger in his life, and all three of them had been at their father for something he’d done to the younger kids. He’s gotten angry at the kids over the years, of course, that’s just natural in any family in close proximity like theirs, but not like this. Unlike his younger brothers, he’s never been much of a fighter, always more of the carer. The glue, as their mother used to call him, holding them all together when they couldn’t do it themselves. </p><p>“Us? There is no us! What did you think, that I was going to just look the other way while you hurt people I care about because you told me some pretty words once or twice? Give me a smile and I’ll just pretend that it never happened? Fuck you. Fuck you, for whatever the hell you thought would happen.”</p><p>“I’m sorry. But it’s just business.” </p><p>When he laughs, there’s nothing happy or joyful about it. He can feel the tears burning in his eyes, but refuses to let them fall. Not yet, anyway, not where Alfie can see him. He’d never give him the satisfaction of knowing he got underneath his skin that deep. </p><p>“Just business, right. You’re not sorry, not yet. But you will be.” </p><p>Not a fighter, but the glue that holds everyone together, that’s what his mother used to say. Who’s going to hold him together now?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. stop</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a letter that shows up every week, like clockwork, dropping through the mail slot every Friday afternoon. They go right into the fire and he sits and watches them burn, sitting in the arm chair and drinking the whiskey right from the bottle. Sometimes they’re written in Alfie’s hand, sometimes Ollie’s. Either way, he doesn’t open them. Not when it feels like he might never get over how it felt that night, suffocating under the weight of the life they’d built together collapsing around him. How had he been so blind to miss the signs? Were there even any signs to miss? Was any of it real, or was it all just a charade to be played until an opportunity to strike came along?</p><p>He’s got no answers, but that doesn’t stop him from asking himself the questions, late at night when he can’t sleep for the pain in his leg. Against his will, memories come back to him in those moments, of things that he knows he’ll never have again. Warm, broad hands on his knee, soothing the ruined muscles there. Fingers brushing along his in the dark, curling between his own to squeeze tight, reassuring them both that the other is still there within reach. The press of lips turned up in that addictive, lethal smile, the one that only came out when it was just the two of them away from prying eyes.</p><p>“Jack!”</p><p>Ollie looks surprised to see him, for a second, before his face flickers through remorse before it settles into a carefully blank mask that doesn’t suit him when he sees that Jack isn’t alone.</p><p>“Oliver.”</p><p>He sees Ollie flinch, at the cold tone and the use of his full name, but he’s not ready to forgive his friend for the betrayal. Honestly, he doesn’t think he ever will be ready to forgive. </p><p>“He misses you, you know. I mean, he doesn’t say anything but he’s been real bad since you left.”</p><p>“I didn’t leave, Ollie, he killed my friend and framed my little brother for the murder.”</p><p>“Just come and see him. Just once, and then I promise I’ll make sure he never contacts you again.”</p><p>For a minute, he hesitates. Is it worth it, seeing him again just to get him out of his head? Apparently, his body makes the decision for him, because he’s nodding before he can think about it. </p><p>“Lead the way, then.”</p><p>**</p><p>“Ollie, what the hell took you so long, eh? Could’ve been to the market and back myself in the time it took you.”</p><p>“I found someone along the way.”</p><p>“Who the hell would- Jack.”</p><p>“It’s good to see you again, Alfie.”</p><p>All three of them know it’s a lie, but no one calls him out on it. Ollie slips from the room without a word while he and Alfie stare at each other. He knows that he looks like hell, with all the sleep he’s been missing. Truthfully, he’d tried to move past this and find someone else, but no matter who he chose, or where he looked, everything reminded him of Alfie. Lillian’s hair, Dean’s eyes, the way Juliette spoke with her hands. Can’t escape him, apparently.</p><p>“Didn’t think I’d see you again, after-”</p><p>“I’m only here because Ollie promised me he’d stop the letters.”</p><p>“Right. No, of course, why would you be here to see me?”</p><p>“You look good.”</p><p>“Tell the truth, mate, we both know I look like shit.”</p><p>Against his better judgement, he laughs. </p><p>“Haven’t been getting much sleep, these days.” </p><p>“Sounds like your conscience catching up with you.”</p><p>“Do you still love me?”</p><p>“I don’t think I know how to stop.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. through the fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m dying, Jack.”</p><p>Alfie says it outright, and absurdly that’s what makes Jack sit up straighter and pay attention. Alfie’s never said anything in a few words when he could use a thousand, twisting off into tangents that are barely relevant before suddenly switching back to his original statement. The man can say a whole speech without saying much of anything at all. For a second, laughably, he thinks that Alfie would have made an excellent politician. He almost wants to tell Alfie to stop messing about, because it’s not funny, but he knows it’s not a lie. Even after everything that’s happened, they wouldn’t lie to each other, not about something like this. Even after he’d shot Alfie and left him for dead. He supposes it makes them even, in a fucked up way.</p><p>“Do you know-”</p><p>“I don’t want to know how long I’ve got left, love. I’m already on a timeline, I’d rather not be counting down the days.”</p><p>“Do you want me to stay?”</p><p>“I’ve always wanted you.”</p><p>Jack doesn’t blush, but it’s close, heat rising in his face at Alfie’s words, spoken with absolute certainty. He can’t deny that he feels the same way. In his life, he’s had countless lovers of all different sorts, but not one of them have made him feel like he does with the man laying on the other side of the bed, watching him like he’ll disappear if Alfie glances away for even a second.</p><p>“I hated you. For the longest time, all I wanted was to hurt you as much as you hurt me.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you?”</p><p>“That would have only hurt me more.”</p><p>He’d thought about it, sure, usually after he’d been drinking for a few hours and everything felt hazy.</p><p>“I don’t forgive you.” He hates himself, for the way he can’t hate Alfie, not really. Oh, he can be angry, incandescent with rage, but he can’t hate him. He’s tried to force himself to let his feelings go, but the truth is that Alfie Solomons has got Jack’s heart in his hands, and even with everything that’s happened Jack realises he doesn’t mind. The realisation only makes Jack hate himself even more, and he wonders what his family would think if they saw him now, still in love with the man that had hurt them all so deeply. “I don’t think I can.”</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>It’s the first time that Alfie has ever said those few words.</p><p>“I want to hate you.”</p><p>“You should, love. I wouldn’t blame you.”</p><p>Alfie is warm. He’s always been warm, like there’s a furnace underneath his skin, and Jack can feel that warmth when Alfie runs careful fingers along the curve of his jaw, brushes his thumb across Jack’s bottom lip.</p><p>“I tried, so hard.”</p><p>He won’t break, he won’t, but his voice does. It cracks in the middle of the sentence, against his will.</p><p>“Do you still love me?”</p><p>It’s something that Alfie has been asking him every time they meet. Usually, he gives a flippant answer, never thinking too deeply about it. Now, though, he does.</p><p>“I’d walk right through the fires of hell just to be with you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. gone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>True to his word, because there’s nothing he could deny a dying man especially when that man is the love of his life, Jack stays. He spends the next few months with the constant sound of the ocean as background noise, and he can’t say he hates it. It almost feels like what he never let himself dream of having when he was just a boy. The reality of the situation is never far from his mind, always lingering in the background like a looming cloud over his head. He doesn’t say anything when he sees Alfie steadily getting worse. He wouldn’t know what to say if he did, and Alfie wouldn’t want it.</p><p>Ollie visits, sometimes, when he has the time. Jack always makes sure to leave when he does, to give them some time together when he’s not hovering in the background, and usually goes down to the beach with Cyril, watching the waves roll in and out. He’s pretty sure that Cyril is his now, considering that Tommy had dropped him on Jack’s doorstep months ago, but he doesn’t like to think about it. That Cyril is all he’ll have left, when Alfie is gone.</p><p>It happens on a weekend, sometime in the night, he supposes. They’d gone to bed together that night, instead of him sitting in the chair beside the bed and watching Alfie sleep to keep an eye on him, just in case. The sun shining through the windows wakes him up, a rare day of sunshine without clouds that feels warm on his face. He knows even without rolling over that Alfie’s gone. There’s the feeling of a heavy body beside him, but no warmth, and there’s never been a day that goes by without Alfie radiating heat like a furnace. His skin is cold when Jack holds his hand, fingers a little stiff when Jack slides the rings off and puts them on the chain that hangs around his neck, adding them to the one from his mother. </p><p>“Ollie, he’s-”</p><p>“I’ll be right there.”</p><p>When Ollie arrives, an hour or so later, Jack is sitting on the armchair by the bed, elbows resting on his knees as he stares at Alfie’s unmoving form, still not entirely believing it even though he can see that there’s no movement, no breathing. </p><p>“When did it happen?”</p><p>“In the night, I guess. He was gone when I woke up.” Jack doesn’t look up at him. He’s afraid that if he looks away from Alfie, he’ll disappear like smoke. It’s irrational, but that’s what he feels. “You’ll have to make the arrangements, I don’t know what to do. He said you’d take care of it.” </p><p>He’s never been to a Jewish funeral before, so everything is foreign to him except the stares that he gets from almost everyone in the synagogue except for Ollie, who stands beside him but doesn’t say anything. In any other situation, it would be fascinating to learn about Alfie’s religion, but he can’t focus on anything except the casket at the front of the room. They’d asked him to speak, even though he knows they don’t approve of him, or his relationship with Alfie. For a few days, he’d thought about turning them down, but he feels like if he doesn’t, he’ll regret it for the rest of his life. </p><p>“I don’t, uh. Don’t really know what to say. I guess someone could stand here for hours, and still not accurately describe what Alfie was like, or what Alfie was to me. I guess, if there is such a thing, I’d have called Alfie my soulmate. Even if he did betray my family multiple times. We just fit together, you know? And I can’t-” Ollie takes him by the arm, when the tears won’t stop coming and he can’t read the words he’d written down on the paper, and leads him out of the building before he holds a cigarette out to him and lights it. </p><p>“What are you going to do now?”</p><p>“Go home. Sort through his stuff, I guess.” </p><p>He doesn’t keep much. Alfie’s hat, some of his scarves, a few of his favourite books. Everything else he gets rid of, eventually, until everything Jack has left of him fits into a box that he keeps in the back of his closet, bringing it out every once in a while to run his fingers over them and remember. </p><p>“You have to stop this.”</p><p>“What am I supposed to do, then, Ollie? Hm? Why don’t you let me know, since you care so much.”</p><p>“Live. Keep going. He wouldn’t want you to waste away without him, Jack.”</p><p>“He can’t want anything, Ollie. He’s dead.”</p>
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